Why I am leaving California

Read it and WEEP. Yes, that's right. Unless you TAKE ACTION, your utility is going to shift you into a more expensive plan. How many people take notices like this and just toss them in the trash?

F@ck SDG&E. Did I mention... North Carolina the electricity costs 1/5 as much?

By the way... look at that first rate plan. I DARE someone to call SDG&E and ask them to explain it to you, verbally. Please for the love of god record the conversation. I recently called my water utility and asked them to explain my water rates. They couldn't. I had them come out to my property and do a water audit. They couldn't explain why I was paying what I was paying. I looked to my neighbors next door and asked them "am I paying the same rate they are?" They didn't know and couldn't tell me. Moulton Niguel Water... just one water district... has a rate structure that includes over 150 micro-climates. That is NOT a typo. f@cking utilities.

 

You're just getting this? SDGE switched us over 18-24 months ago. It's just the wife and I so with me home all day, I do the big energy zappers during the morning. Nothings going from 4-9 pm other than the TV. We don't have AC and probably average an $80 per month bill for (8) month of the year and $120 during the (4) colder months. That being said, I'm not staying either. Meeting on Sunday with our builder in Prescott.

 

It looks to me like plan #1 will work well if you have a BEV that you charge at home. Program it it to charge in the super off peak times. Basically midnight to 0600. If you don't have a BEV, you won't have as many electrons to account for, so plan #2 without the super off peak time frame is better for you. As for why they automatically move you to the more expensive one... well, that's capitalism. They're in the business of making money.

 

My sister and her husband are moving to Prescott from N Cal next week, 20+ acres backed up to forest with tons of trails, I’m jealous!

 

Do you know which part? If they're actually in Prescott with 20 acres, I'm guessing Williamson Valley. There's tons of riding there of course but I'll about a mile from Granite Basin which I can link into Emmanuel Pines which links into Thumb Butte on 98% single track. https://www.trailforks.com/region/granite-basin/

 

Looks like it backs up to Prescott forest. Puntenney road. She an equestrian, they’re not into mtb, just trail riding and running. Can’t wait to check it out!

 

This is my plan if it’s not to late! LA is finished!!!!!

 

They are wayyy out in Williamson Valley, about 10 miles North or where we're building so they will be 25 minutes from town, which I'm sure they are fine with. I'm not into horses but we're building in a development named American Ranch so a lot of residents have horses, there is a covered equestrian "rink", stables, yada, yada, yada. I might learn to ride when we get there full time.I've always wanted to do one of those 'City Slickers' cattle drives.

 

Looks like it backs up to Prescott forest.

I get it, sadly. As much as I like CA having the beaches ,the mountains and nice climate, it’s not our forever state either.

 

Oh ok, I’ve never been out that way. The pics look nice tho.
You may have to getcha some chaps, boots and spurs to fit in cowboy!
If you see a girl who looks like me Welp..that’s my twin

 

Bitch we got the Lakers.

 

Can't live anywhere else..
Just got to take the good w the bad...
I can't imagine better all year riding then scal..

 

Utilities are a monopoly. They are not a true free enterprise where others can compete for your business. Thus you get this. Just wait, California is working on edging PG&E out with a buy out. Great! Now you’ll have the government run your utilities...

 

I'm torn,stay here or try somewhere else.
Cost of living here is high, buts it's central to an airport for work and the hub of the industry I work in.
I should check out other areas while traveling for work for a possible move.

 

That's Minnesota. Or is that lakes?

 

Fond-du-Lac. Butt of the lake. Wisconsin.

 

Good for you @BonsaiNut ! Safe travels to you!

My Cali riding days are numbered as well. We've been working on getting out of here for over a year. Researching states near and far. We were really close to going to Utah. Had a job offer, just couldn't come to terms with the employer. Thought we were going to be stuck here for a while. Then about a month ago I got an offer from one of the big dogs in my industry. A quick trip to their offices in Henderson, NV for an interview. And, a few phone calls later we came to an agreement. I'll be starting there the beginning of March. We'll rent in Henderson while we find a place to buy. We have our good eye on Boulder City. With any luck I'll be able to pedal from my house to Bootleg Canyon.

 

Can't click "like" but congrats! Even more important that you join me tomorrow.

 

Your right I may recant.

 

Don't sit on any (more) cacti!

I'm glad I got to ride with you one more time before you hit the road... PCE was a good one, as was our Wrightwood night mission. Good luck out there.

 

Boulder City is a great area. Better than Henderson, for sure.

 

Stoked to hear of more splinter members, @Redman. Congrats on making it happen (both of you dynamic lads).

Bootleg and legal MJ sound fun. I’m likely to be rolling through shortly after you get there. I could be your first sandbag, er, guiding client.

 

I don't want to be too harsh, because SDG&E is trying really hard to confuse and mislead people. However, how can you possibly judge ANYTHING just from some colored boxes on a chart? Where are the NUMBERS? What if I told you that the baseline rate in rate DR is only $.01 higher than the "super saver" rate? Even if you moved to rate TOU-DR1, and used 100% of your electricity between midnight and 6AM, you would save next to nothing... and all other use was higher?

That is what the chart says to me... and I have solar panels so my mid-day use between 10AM and 6PM is next to nothing!

And here's another good question to ask: why are the rate plans - and time of use and peak usage hours - so different for SDG&E versus SCE? Do people in Irvine use electricity completely differently than people in Laguna Hills?

 

How in the world does a house use $2k of electricity? I'm stumped on this unless the house is 12k sf or more.

I work from home most of the time, my heating is now a heat pump and so cost went up considerably and its still only $90 which is same as August.
But then I'm in a 1300 sf 2 br.

 

That's an annual amount. I hope you don't think that $170 per month for a 4000 sq foot house with a pool and electric car is high(?)

Across the US, the average electricity use per capita is 4,500 kilowatt hours (per year). California electricity is so expensive, no one comes CLOSE to this number. If you were an "average" user, a household of four would use 18,000 kilowatt hours per year... and at $.35 per kWh, you'd be paying $6,300 per year, or $525 per month.

I am not kidding when I say some of our neighbors get bills that high... but they live in bigger houses and run the A/C a lot.

 

Annually that makes sense.. thanks for the clarification. I think my $90 per month is slightly high but not unreasonable.

 

I have 8 panels and a housewife and 2 little kiddos and 1,800 sq ft and a $25/month average bill. Maybe the intent is to get the consumer to consume less, and money is the motivator.

 

No. SDG&E is screwed. They have to keep increasing revenues to pay for increasing costs (their employee benefits are the best on the planet) and as more people move to solar and other ways of reducing consumption (LED light bulbs, etc), electricity use is down. Their only possible solution is to keep increasing costs... which just provides additional incentive for more people to go solar. Solar is already cheaper than electricity from the utility, and solar continues to get cheaper as they improve the tech and get higher efficiencies of scale, while electricity from the utility continues to get more costly.

If we were going to live here another 20 years, I'd double my solar and then they could go screw themselves.

You can see on our their time of use plans that their peak rates start at 4PM. That isn't truly peak usage rates - which everyone knows is between 12PM and 6PM during the heat of the day. Rather those are the "screw solar customer" rates. They have to figure out some way to get solar customers to pay more - and this is how they are trying to do it.

 

That makes sense. The entire working class comes home from work between 4 and 6 PM and plugs in their electric vehicles at the same time in their garages.

I worked for Edison for six years between 2009 and 2015. During that time, they were rolling heavy on building new infrastructure and expanding their transmission and distribution circuits, and they were more concerned with how they’re going to keep up with the anticipated load demand in the evenings than they were about how they were going to sell the electricity. They were literally expecting residential solar to help them from rolling blackouts. I think somebody calculated that it would be cheaper for SCE to rely on residential solar and simply sell less electricity with their existing infrastructure than it would be to have to build more substations, transmission lines, and distribution circuits to keep up with the anticipated increased demand.

 

The

The change in the peak is not about overall peak electricity demand, it’s peak demand from the utility.
California gives power away from 12-2 on these cool sunny days. SDG&E is building a reversible hydroelectric plant to try to save the excess solar for the evening. They are allowed to pass that along to ratepayers.

the homeowner response is to add batteries to solar.